A Salisbury Township doctor was charged Tuesday with conspiring to write fraudulent prescriptions for more than 10,000 Oxycodone pills and making the drugs available for illegal sale on the street.

Dr. John Manzella, 49, of the 1900 block of Lehigh Parkway North, just south of Allentown, conspired with a New Jersey man in 2011 and 2012 to write the bogus prescriptions, the state attorney general's office said.

The drugs, with an estimated street value of $300,000, were sold illegally because of Manzella's misrepresentations and fraud, state investigators said.

Manzella admitted to the charges during a July 2 meeting with state agents at the attorney general's office in Allentown, according to the arrest affidavit.

Most of the illegally prescribed drugs were purchased at Northeast Pharmacy in Lehighton and Mauch Chunk Pharmacy in Jim Thorpe, the affidavit says.

The drugs then were resold without prescriptions in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Monroe, Bucks, Montgomery, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties, investigators said.

Manzella has offices in Jim Thorpe and Palmerton.

Manzella worked with Robert Kosch, 56, of Newark, N.J., who early this year attracted the attention of the Sussex County, N.J., prosecutor's office, the affidavit says.

Manzella was charged Tuesday with 48 counts of unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance, 48 counts of acquiring a controlled substance by misrepresentation, two counts of conspiracy and one count of identity theft.

He was arraigned by District Judge Edward Lewis of Jim Thorpe and released on $500,000 bail. Authorities said he surrendered his license to prescribe drugs and waived his preliminary hearing.

Kosch also has been charged and awaits extradition to Pennsylvania, the attorney general's office said.

According to Manzella's arrest affidavit, the Sussex County prosecutor's office in April notified Pennsylvania state narcotics agents of a possible drug conspiracy involving Manzella and Kosch.

The Sussex County authorities gave Pennsylvania agents evidence, including cellphone text messages, they had collected in a search of Kosch's Morris Plains office, the affidavit says.

"In one [text message] conversation, Kosch warns Dr. Manzella that a pharmacy will be calling to verify a prescription in another subject's name," the affidavit says. "Dr. Manzella responds that one of his staff members is verifying the fraudulent script."

The illegal prescriptions were made out to Kosch's name and several other names, investigators said.

On May 8, state agents executed a search warrant at Manzella's offices. Investigators found that he did not have the required patient files for most of the names used in the suspicious prescriptions, the affidavit says.